China’s car headlights can project movies like drive-in theatres

[TOKYO] American drive-in theatres might be a relic of the past, but Chinese carmakers have found a novel way to bring them back: headlights that project movies onto walls.

Take the Stelato S9 sedan, developed by Huawei Technologies and Baic Motor. It features a system that not only lights up the road, but can cast the latest Marvel flick on a 100-inch screen outdoors. The two-megapixel headlights can also beam crosswalk and navigation arrows on the ground.

It’s yet another example of how local carmakers are innovating on another level to get ahead in China’s hyper-competitive market.

John Zhang, president of Seres Group, which makes cars with Huawei under the Aito brand, said that the feature was one of the key selling points of their popular M line of vehicles, along with the driver-assistance system. “We did lots of upgrades on this model,” he said.

Huawei is not the only one working on pixelated headlights. BMW and Mercedes-Benz group are also working on the technology, designed to deliver sharper and brighter lighting on roads, although Chinese carmakers are racing ahead to add new features. The market for such advanced lighting systems, estimated at US$1.1 billion in 2025, is expected to roughly double over the coming decade, according to Intelmarket Research.

Huawei is also bringing the concept inside cars. The telecommunications and electronics conglomerate, which has been pushing aggressively into the automotive sector, also offers a system that can project images onto roll-up screens behind the front seats, or from a raised tailgate.

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It was not immediately clear how regulators would prevent moving vehicles from distracting other drivers by projecting images onto roads. BLOOMBERG